LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) — For 20 years, Rick Warren was wrong about AIDS, he told listeners at the opening session of the much-anticipated 2006 Global Summit on AIDS and the Church.
The megachurch pastor and mega-author said he initially wasn't afraid of AIDS, nor did he judge those who had it — “It's not a sin to be sick.” But he just didn't care about it.
Fortunately for him, he said, his wife did care. Four years ago, Kay Warren's compassion led the couple to travel to several countries in Africa to learn about the disease. And since then, the Warrens, who founded Saddleback Church in Southern California, have worked to raise awareness in their church and among Christians worldwide with the ambitious goal of eradicating the contractible immune deficiency.
Warren told conference listeners he can't believe he was “so blind to something this big,” adding that it makes the bubonic plague look “like a picnic.”
Indeed, the statistics about people with HIV/AIDS are astounding. In the United States, more than 1 million live with the HIV virus that causes AIDS. Worldwide more than 40 million people have it, and experts project that by 2010 a total of 100 million people will have carried HIV.
To get the church involved, the Warrens invited AIDS experts, policymakers, religious leaders, medical researchers and ambassadors to their Lake Forest, Calif., church for a two-day summit headlined by Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) with video presentations from Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates.
The event, attended by more than 2,000 people — many of them AIDS-fighters themselves — featured training sessions and seminars, plus free AIDS testing for anyone who came. Warren himself, to provide an example to other Christian leaders, was tested for HIV a year ago, along with 60 of his staff members. Obama and Brownback also agreed to undergo a public AIDS test Dec. 1, World AIDS Day.
And despite some criticism from the evangelical community that Warren should not work with Obama because of the senator's pro-choice stance on abortion, the pastor said he will cooperate with anyone who wants to work against AIDS, no matter what motivations he or she may have.
“I think the Jesus way of change is always to show love, even to your critics,” he said. “We will work with whoever wants to work to save lives and [then] let the chips fall as they may. … I don't care what motivation you have. Let's just get it done.”
Kay Warren had that same feeling of urgency when she first learned about the 12 million African children who are orphaned by AIDS.
Until then, she told the crowd, she thought AIDS was “a gay disease, as though that meant it was something I didn't have to care about.” But then, in 2002, she picked up a news magazine “and suddenly caught a glimpse of a new reality. It rocked my world.”
At that moment, “it was as if my senses had been awakened and that was all I could see,” Kay Warren said. If Christians do not become “seriously disturbed” by the millions of people who die every year from AIDS, she continued, they will have lived lives using the wrong measure of success.
Of course, when Warren first realized her obligation to help AIDS victims, she said, she faced several obstacles — barriers that also stop churches from taking action: ignorance about the disease, irrational fear about contracting it; worry about what others will think; and paralysis because of the sheer size of the problem.
All of her fears were unfounded, she said. Humanly speaking, it is impossible to end HIV, she said, “but with God, it is possible. With his church, when you and I show up, I do believe there is hope.”
“Jesus was not worried about his reputation. Ever. Ever!” she said. “Jesus Christ lived boldly. He talked to those he was going to talk to. He talked frankly. He talked straight. Jesus hung out with everybody and anybody — prostitutes, tax collectors. And Jesus didn't give it a thought. And if Jesus didn't put any barriers around the people he would hang out with, who was I [to do so]?”
Kay and Rick Warren's conference is the first to promote a solely church-based strategy to mobilize millions of Christians to work toward the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. They said they hope pastors who have used Rick Warren's best-selling Purpose Driven books — which have spawned a small publishing industry and a burgeoning worldwide network of churches — will use strategies and resources from the conference to develop AIDS-fighting plans within their congregations.
Those local churches, Warren said, are the only force that can eradicate the disease. In many parts of the world, he said, the Christian church is the only civil-social structure. And the church is the “only truly global organization, existing in every country and in thousands of indigenous people groups that are not represented by the United Nations or any multi-national corporation.”
With such a historic, widespread, efficient base, not to mention a divine mandate to help the orphan and widow, Warren said, the church must help.
“The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence,” he said. “We are blessed to be a blessing. God does not bless you just so you can feel good. He blesses you to be a blessing to others.”
He pointed out that Americans, if they have any food in their refrigerators, clothes on their backs, and roofs over their heads, are richer than 75 percent of the world. Most Americans have access to good health care, and “most people of the world would love to have your problems,” he added.
God commands the fortunate to help those in need, Warren said. Quite simply, God didn't cause AIDS to happen, but he allowed it, according to Warren, and God's plan for AIDS is that Christians help those affected by it.
“We have to care because Jesus modeled it,” he said. “Jesus is the most compassionate person who ever lived. If you want to be like him … then you have to care about people who are sick. AIDS is a terrible scourge, a terrible pandemic. It is also the greatest opportunity to show love to the world.”
“The world has been living with AIDS for 25 years, and rather than it getting better, it has gotten worse,” Warren said. “It will never be solved by government alone…it will never be solved by churches alone …. It will never be solved by [non-governmental organizations] alone. We have to work together.”
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